OR sustainability: A holistic system understanding
How do surgical gloves affect sustainability and the global environment?
For healthcare companies to improve their environmental impact, one step would be understanding how single-use products such as surgical gloves, influence that environmental impact.
In this episode
This episode includes: How can companies square their sustainability targets with single-use surgical products, such as surgical gloves? What does sustainability mean? Different material and manufacturing choices and how their impact is measured have a real effect on the planet.
Speaking the same language
Whether it’s a lifecycle assessment (LCA) or disclosure standards, sustainability is only understandable and achievable if everyone within the value chain aligns on measuring and sharing data and metrics in the same way.
Holistic system understanding
Rather than dealing with isolated data points, it’s critical to understand an entire system. A holistic approach to improvement will consider production methods, renewability and recyclability of materials, the energy expended during production, the carbon footprint of transport, packaging, and product end of life.
There’s a long sustainability journey ahead to accurately measure and understand the holistic environmental impact of healthcare delivery.
Hands & gloves
Hands and gloves hold many of the critical keys to infection prevention, OR efficiency and surgical best practices. Hear more from your peers about OR practice, gloving and other surgical-glove-related topics in the podcast series, Hands & gloves.
Listen to all episodesRelated articles
Read all-
Gloves | 2 min read Culture of OR safety: Double gloving for effective hand protection
Improving surgical gloving practice
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Gloves | 1 min read The new generation of (NRL) surgical gloves
Surgical gloves and raw materials – time for re-appraisal?
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Gloves | 1 min read Creating a Consensus document for surgical gloving best practice - Part 2
Part two discusses the role of a Consensus work to overcome the challenges of implementing change.
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Gloves | 1 min read Creating a Consensus document for surgical gloving best practice – Part 1
The first part discusses the need to create a Consensus document with recommendations for surgical gloving best practice.
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Gloves | 2 min read The role of chemicals in medical gloves
Challenges and opportunities with chemicals in surgical gloves - meeting customer expectations
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Gloves | 1 min read Balancing practice and theory in the OR
Swedish OR nurses’ preventive interventions to reduce bacterial growth and SSIs, and to increase comfort in patients undergoing surgery
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Gloves | 2 min read Protocol to practice: Single to double gloving
How to implement a double gloving protocol in practice
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Gloves | 2 min read Strategies for active OR quality improvement
Using improvement science to drive change in the operating room
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Gloves | 2 min read Contact dermatitis
Contact dermatitis is an inflammation of the skin resulting from direct contact of a substance with the surface of the skin 1 .
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References
- Shared value: https://www.sharedvalue.org/about/what-is-shared-value/
- Carbon Disclosure Project: https://www.cdp.net/en
- EcoVadis: https://ecovadis.com/
- United Nations Sustainable Development: https://sdgs.un.org/
- Life Cycle Assessment: https://sphera.com/glossary/what-is-a-life-cycle-assessment-lca/
- The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (and scopes 1,2,3): https://ghgprotocol.org/
- Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD): https://www.carbontrust.com/news-and-insights/insights/corporate-sustainability-reporting-directive-csrd-explained
- Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards: https://www.globalreporting.org/
- Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and standard for Net Zero: https://sciencebasedtargets.org/
Impacts on hospital emissions:
- Baxter NB, Yoon AP, Chung KC. Variability in the Use of Disposable Surgical Supplies: A Surgeon Survey and Life Cycle Analysis. J Hand Surg Am. 2021 Dec;46(12):1071-1078. https://www.jhandsurg.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0363-5023%2821%2900364-6
- Drew J, Christie SD, Tyedmers P, Smith-Forrester J, Rainham D. Operating in a Climate Crisis: A State-of-the-Science Review of Life Cycle Assessment within Surgical and Anesthetic Care. Environ Health Perspect. 2021 Jul;129(7):76001. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8274692/pdf/ehp8666.pdf